


Begonia

by bemusedlybespectacled (ardentintoxication)



Series: Hayffie Challenge Daily Prompts [7]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, F/M, Flowers 'verse, Forced Prostitution, Hayffie, Language of Flowers, Prostitution, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardentintoxication/pseuds/bemusedlybespectacled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt "haymitch likes his fantasies, effie does not." "He knows, of course, that the magazines are wrong."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Begonia

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the same universe as The Language of Flowers. If you haven't read it already, read that one first.

Haymitch likes to pretend that Effie is what the magazines say she is: a beautiful coquette who gains and loses lovers as easily as breathing in and out. He knows, of course, that the magazines are wrong. More than one of his fellow Gamemakers, including the Head, have recommended her to him.  _She's a good lay,_ they tell him _, and she's got fantastic tits. But she's expensive,_ they say _. Victors always are. You need to go through the proper channels._

But somehow it's better for him to imagine her as his equal, as someone who could reject him if she wanted to. It seems fairer than the truth, that he could just buy her services for the night or sleep with her while she's drunk. It's more of a challenge that way, and Haymitch loves a challenge.

So he pretends that he's innocent of her true status, and when she invites him up to her room he tells her, "Not while you're drunk, sweetheart." He's probably the first person to turn her down.

He doesn't tell her that he wants her on her own, unfettered. She wouldn't trust him, wouldn't believe that someone like him would have morals and principles and dreams, and she wouldn't put any stock in them if she did. Effie drinks, but he thinks she doesn't use some other drug like morphling or amp or morta for a reason. She wants to dull the pain, not hide in a fantasy. She doesn't believe in dreams anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> In floriography, begonias stand for "a fanciful nature." Amp is a drug invented by the lovely deathmallow, and Morta is the Roman name for Atropos, for which atropine is named.


End file.
